Kids Get Crafty: Ice Ornaments

January 23, 2016

As the UK experiences what some would say is a “proper winter”, let’s embrace the snow and ice and use it to make some beautiful decorations. How I wish this was my idea.. but of course it wasn’t! I saw it as part of a discussion over at Mumsnet – Winter Ice Decorations. They are simple and OH SO CUTE: Ice Decorations. A fab, fun, easy, quick craft, that also teaches a tiny bit of science (the whole bit about water freezing).

These ornaments feature in our new Christmas Ornament Book. 30 of our favourite ornaments brought together in one place. Sorted by age. Each craft is shared on one page – making the perfect worksheet print outs. Lovely to have them all in one place too!

The Book

This is a (German version of a Swedish) book about enjoying winter and “shooing away Spring” when it tries to come too early. As our ice decorations are all about enjoying winter and WANTING freezing temperatures I thought it would be rather appropriate. The story is about a little boy, who cannot wait for the first snow, so he can go out on his new skis. When it finally arrives he ventures out into the woods to wind the King of Winter. Once there, he plays with all the helpers that make skis, toboggans and ice skating books. Father Winters makes sure that Lady Spring stays away until her time comes. In the end however, Lady Spring does return. The little boy is sad, but the book reminds us that spring is indeed beautiful.

It is a very “traditional” book. The drawings are old fashioned and I love the lesson about enjoy enjoy the different seasons for what they are. This is one of classics and hopefully will be cherish!

Find all of Else Beskow’s BEAUTIFUL books in English – including Ollie’s Ski Trip: Uk Readers and US Readers here (affiliate links added for your convenience).

The Craft

These are incredibly easy to make

Materials: dishes, some bits & pieces (we had berries, holly, helicopter thingies, a shell and some sticks), some string, water

1) Fill the dishes with water

2) Add a piece of string (make sure it is properly submerged or nice and long. One of our decorations fell of the tree as the string wasn’t frozen in properly. Not a disaster, we used it for our snowman

3) Place your items in the water – no point faffing too much, as they just float off anyway. In Red Ted’s words though “I like playing with water” and needless to say this was his favourite step

4) Place outside overnight to freeze (we woke up, to them all being covered in snow)

5) Hang and enjoy!

(and don’t be too sad when the temperatures rise and they all start melting/ dropping off… all part of it!)

These are sooooo beautiful. Weren’t they featured in Get Crafty a few months back? I think they are beautiful, and would make awesome outdoor party decorations – maybe hung outside the windows in winter!

These ice ornaments are a great idea. On Christmas Eve, we made an “ice wreath” filled with carrots and cranberries for the reindeer, but I like your smaller ornament better as the wreaths are quite heavy.

JDaniel4’s Mom – yes, definitely a great little science project too – funnily enough, Red Ted actually asked me whether we were making them “for the birds” as it is the same tee we hang popcorn and bird feeders in! Bless him.

We love making these! We got a bit carried away with our ice lanterns pre Christmas but will definitely be making a few to pop in our apple tree to mark the new year! Thanks for linking to festive Friday! x

Oooo… I can’t wait til it gets cold again. I want to make some of those! We are having a warm spell today, but winter is not over! I saw something similar where they spelled out noel with the berries and branches and made luminaria from them. Such fun! Happy New Years!

Fun! We would have to put these in the indoor freezer here and then find the one or 2 days a year when it froze for a few hours outside–but they look fun! Might as well take advantage of the change in weather for some fun!

Just came across this wonderful winter art, science, fine motorskills and great language building activity not to mention HOW FUN! I will be sharing this with the teachers at my school and also my family members who homeschool. Thanks for the post and I am a first time visitor. We are featuring winter on our blog this week hope you will stop by and visit. 🙂 joyce

Morning… decided to drop by to find something me and my munchkin could do today and found this. I LOVE it, however, we live in Texas, so it would only last a day or so when it is really cold. Maybe we will have to visitthe grandparents next winter to do this, because this is just uh-mazing!!! Hope your having a wonderful weekend!

Ah Julie, lovely of you to say!! 🙂 we don’t get quite enough cold weather either – ours lasted about a week? But as it is “free” and so easy, it is worth doing anyway! Even if you do it in the freezer!!!

Oh my goodness these are beautiful. That’s it. We are taking a family holiday to the snow this year so I can make all these fabulous winter crafts that I am seeing all over the place. (As I write this we are melting in a heatwave!)

Hi! Great craft! I think I saw you are from Germany. We are doing a booth at my daughter’s school multicultural night for our German culture. Wondering if u have any ideas for crafts, props, food, etc?

[…] have access to some bits and pieces of nature, I highly recommend checking out Red Ted Art’s nature ice ornaments that are absolutely stunning. Or use actual birdseed for ornaments too, at Henry […]

[…] can’t wait to take advantage of this cold winter weather by making these beautiful ice ornament decorations. Redtedart.com give us a complete walk-through of this simple-yet-beautiful decorations. Choose […]

[…] These Icy Ornaments include art and science. They are basically gorgeous blocks of ice filled with winter themed pieces like bare sticks, leaves, and cranberries. Cinnamon sticks would be awesome too. Kids can hang them outside to be a beautiful decoration outside. I bet the birds would love them too. […]